A resident of Pune, who made a career out of duping elderly citizens not well-versed with ATM kiosks, was nabbed by Kurar police recently. Sagar Agarwal (32) used to pretend to assist people with cash withdrawals but would switch their debit cards with inoperative ones and use their cards subsequently.Agarwal, who lives at Kondhwa with his wife and son, was arrested by Malad police on July 26 last year for a similar crime. He had planned to throw his friends a birthday party and had booked space in a restaurant but cops ruined his plans. He had duped persons at kiosks in two cases at Kandivli, two at Kurar, and one each at Dindoshi, Santacruz and Pune, police said.Agarwal would stand inside kiosks with a bunch of inoperative cards, scouting for mostly elderly persons. On the pretext of assisting them in making a withdrawal, Agarwal used to make a mental note of the PIN. When the transaction ended, Agarwal used to switched the victim’s card. The victim would leave, assuming that the debit card is safe in the wallet. Agarwal would later use the victim’s debit card at other ATM kiosks to withdraw money.In one case at Kurar, Agarwal knocked out Rs 1.4 lakh from a bus conductor’s account over three to four days. Agarwal had obtained the card of Nivrutti Sonawane (50) on June 30 when he ‘assisted’ him at an ATM. Sonawane did not check his cellphone for days together and failed to see text alerts from the bank about repeated withdrawals from his account. Before Sonawane, Agarwal had conned a woman from Kurar and had withdrawn Rs30,000 from her account in May.After Sonawane lodged a complaint, Kurar police scanned through CCTV footage of the ATM kiosk where he had met Agarwal. Based on the grabs, Agarwal’s image was obtained. He was tracked down and arrested on July 8; he is presently in judicial custody.Police have appealed to people not to take the help of strangers for making transactions at a bank or an ATM.

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